European conservatives are at an inflection point
First published at Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.
What is going on? Why are we suddenly dealing with conservative parties that can no longer be distinguished from the extreme right in terms of both policy and rhetoric?
The Republicans in the United States, the Tories under Boris Johnson in the UK, and the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) under Sebastian Kurz in Austria were all once classically conservative parties. But all pretensions to consensus-based politics and reason of state have been discarded and exchanged for a desire for polarization. This dynamic has helped provide impetus to an interstitial segment of the political spectrum: radicalized conservatism. German conservatism is now dabbling with the same strategy that has already driven other countries towards dangerous junctures.
Radicalized conservatism as crisis phenomenon
Radicalized conservatism is not a distinct ideological spectrum, but rather a dynamic that exists within conservatism, the emergence of which can be traced back to a number of crisis-laden developments and upheavals. The great promise of the post-war era — that things would keep improving from generation to generation and that there would be greater prosperity for everyone — has long since lost its credibility. Instead, living standards have stagnated. Younger generations are experiencing the reality that the purchasing power of their incomes does not even remotely compare to that of their parents. For those who do not stand to inherit wealth, a regular life with a steady income, two holidays a year, and a little place in the countryside is likely to remain only a dream.
At the same time, we live in an era of multiple culminating crises. The financial and economic crisis of 2008 is still yet to be overcome, and its repercussions are still being felt on many levels. This includes the enormous loss of trust in the institutions of representative democracy. Too often, elected state representatives have delegated the task of crisis management to the individual under the guise of “personal responsibility”. Alongside the pandemic and the financial crisis, now the climate crisis — with its devastating consequences such as catastrophic floods, extreme forest fires, and crop failures that the Global North is no longer spared from — must also be resolved at the dinner table.
Amidst all this, the major political parties, who once provided stability, appear at a loss on how to act in almost every respect. The crisis of social democracy has spread far and wide — and with good reason. But its conservative counterpart is busy trying to counter the threat of its own irrelevance. Radicalized conservatism can thus be understood as a crisis phenomenon.
Radicalized conservatism is a force within conservative parties that is no longer interested in having a stabilizing effect on the current system. In this, it is entirely irrelevant whether its representatives like Kurz, Trump, or Johnson are dyed-in-the-wool ideologues or not. They all began making use of the extreme-right playbook, and it brought them success. This has occurred on a strategic and ideological level as well as a practical one.
Through this, radicalized conservatism has staked an absolute claim to power that it is no longer willing to share. In the majority of Western democracies post-1945, two stabilizing political forces emerged: a conservative party and a (social-)democratic one. The conservative parties have now moved to abolish the long-established post-war consensus (liberal democracy combined with capitalism, a restricted social state, and ever-deeper global integration), thereby leaving the (social-)democratic party to fulfil the role of system-upholding (i.e. conservative) and balance-providing party on its own.
Radicalized conservatism is performing a trick invented by the extreme right: it presents itself as an alternative to the system from within the system itself. As Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz simultaneously played the role of powerful statesman and the persecuted renegade fighting the system. As US president, Donald Trump also complained of being hunted by the deep state.
Radicalized conservatism not only fundamentally calls the post-war consensus into question, but also recognizes that the system is disintegrating at every turn. We are currently living through an interregnum, with a stable alternative to the existing hegemony yet to appear. In this time of crisis, the window of possibility for something new is wider than ever before. At the same time, the servicing and balancing of the interests of various factions of capital in the old system is becoming increasingly precarious. These factions now see an opportunity to ensure long-term advantages for themselves by helping facilitate the radicalization of conservative parties, including by actively supporting them, for example in the form of donations.
The preservation of political power and maintaining the power of new and specific factions of capital (including in opposition to those of old) thus goes hand in hand. The best example in this regard is billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who was an early ally of Donald Trump, has financed numerous MAGA candidates’ election campaigns, and is now Sebastian Kurz’s boss — immediately after resigning as chancellor, Kurz took up a position as a “global strategist” with Thiel Capital in the US.
The strategic arsenal
In order to implement their policies and assert their claim to power, radicalized conservatives utilize a range of strategies. This includes the calculated transgression of rules. These can be formal rules, such as laws, as seen with Trump and Kurz, both of whom were convicted in court. Just as impactful, however, is the breaking of informal rules as a sustained method of provocation. This tactic is somewhat more difficult to pin down, given that it concerns matters of ethics, etiquette, and politicians’ responsibilities as role models. It results in opponents being cast in the role of defenders of social values and civility — essentially, a conservative position that represents state interests. At issue here is the question of what a politician may and may not do and which kinds of behaviour are expected and permitted.
Secondly, polarization has become a primary strategy, and occurs along “cultural fault lines”. This means that feminism and anti-racism are two targets that come under constant attack, though almost anything can be made a battleground in the culture war. In Germany, this was demonstrated by the Christian Democrats’ (CDU/CSU) and Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) approach to the issue of heat pumps. While in other countries, the focus with regard to this issue was on technical and financing aspects, in Germany heat pumps became symbolic for a lack of freedom, similar to the consumption of meat and being able to drive a car with a combustion engine. These culture wars are not conducted on a rational level — instead, they represent a strategy of attrition, intended to permanently engage (and thus distract and wear down) political opponents and the media.
Thirdly, these parties rally around a leader, one who is revered on an almost religious level and within the party is granted absolute power, both formally and informally. Key votes and decisions take place increasingly rarely within the framework of democratic structures; instead, power is shifted to a network of advisors and allies that lack democratic legitimacy. This occurs not only as the result of a nihilistic powerplay, however, but is also in service of a political agenda. This strategy was clearly deployed by Kurz and Trump. In Germany, this aspect is far less pronounced, because Friedrich Merz, as the new leader and chancellor candidate for the CDU, is hardly suitable as a central figure for such a strategy. Both Trump and Kurz have a specific personal charm that resonated strongly with many voters. This factor is lacking when it comes to the CDU/CSU and its leader, Friedrich Merz.
Fourthly, radicalized conservatism sets its sights on weakening all democratic structures. This is at the heart of its political agenda, and manifests as a rapid dismantling of the welfare state, as well as attacks on an independent judiciary and a critical media. Hungary is the primary role model for all radicalized conservative parties. While democracy and the state still formally exist there, on a practical level Orbán has a monopoly on power. It is a kind of Potemkin state that only functions as a façade for an autocratic regime.
Fifthly, high levels of emotion and agitation are maintained at all times. Radicalized conservative parties are permanently in campaign mode. Their primary goal is always to win the next 24-hour media cycle. This results in a constant production of provocateurs and headlines, irrespective of whether they have any substance to them or not. Accordingly, when in government, radicalized conservatism no longer concerns itself with complicated issues that cannot be “sold”.
The case of Austria showed that the entirety of the state apparatus is only considered useful for the production of headlines for the tabloids. Even when a once-in-a-millennium flood was occurring, the chancellor’s press spokesperson primarily spent his time getting worked up about Viennese kindergartens. According to media reports, a Muslim father had apparently refused to shake a female kindergarten teacher’s hand. The ability — let alone the will — to differentiate between existentially relevant and irrelevant events has been lost.
Sixthly, this results in the creation of a parallel world. The reality that is staged and asserted increasingly has less in common with factual reality. Where this leads has already been shown by events in Washington, D.C. and Brasília, where armed mobs sought to storm government buildings and felt justified in doing so, genuinely believing that an ominous “deep state” was manipulating democracy to work against them.
Is German democracy in danger?
The consequences of all this are evident on both a macro and a micro level. In Austria, as in the US, the attacks on the judiciary and the rule of law left lasting scars. In comparison to elsewhere, Germany was for a long time largely immune to antidemocratic parliamentary tendencies. This all changed with the founding of the AfD, a very young and modern right-wing extremist party. It emerged decades after the now well-established right-wing extremist parties in other parts of Europe and is yet to wield governing power.
In this respect, Germany lags far behind in comparison to such developments in other countries, especially those that border it, such as Belgium, Italy, or Austria. This means that German society still has time to learn from what has happened elsewhere and prevent its own democracy from being infiltrated and dismantled.
Germany’s unique development is also reflected in its conservative party. The course charted by the CDU/CSU under Merkel was a stark contrast to the paths taken by the Republican Party in the US, Fidesz in Hungary, and PiS in Poland, for instance. In opposition, the CDU/CSU appeared to spend a lot of time unsure of what their new identity would look like.
Markus Söder and the CSU made early, demonstrative efforts to align with Sebastian Kurz and the ÖVP. They adopted their strategies and likely hoped that they would be able to transform Söder into a Kurz-like figure of admiration. This strategy failed due to Kurz’s resignation and the raids carried out against his associates and his party, as well as Kurz’s subsequent indictment and his hiring by Peter Thiel.
Following a hesitant phase in which Merz sometimes acted in a manner supportive of the state and sometimes as a combatant in the culture wars, the CDU eventually also adopted the path taken by other conservative parties. They lacked a shining example to follow, however, as (in contrast to Trump and Kurz) they did not wish to openly profess their approval of Orbán. But they do seem to be less reluctant to align with Giorgia Meloni and her party, the Fratelli d’Italia. Meloni could develop into a figurehead of radicalized conservatism. In contrast to Orbán, her party has never been conservative, but rather always (post-)fascist. Meloni, who has so far presented herself as pro-European and pro-American, and Orbán represent opposing strategies and alliance options within European parliamentary right-wing extremism. The CDU appears to lean more towards Meloni at present and to leave Orbán to consort with the conventional extreme right.
Domestically, the CDU is fully committed to the culture wars, to a break with conventions, and to polarization. This is also evident in its relationship to the AfD. Up until now, the uniqueness of the German situation in comparison to the rest of Europe has permitted a “firewall” to be erected around the parliamentary extreme right. This concept does not or did not exist in other countries in such a form. Now, in Germany, it is at risk of collapsing at the urging of the conservatives.
The push from some German conservatives to work more closely with the AfD is based on two assumptions: one, that involving them will lead to them being deradicalized, and two, that tactical options are required to put pressure on the other democratic parties. That the CDU is abandoning its principled refusal to work with the AfD can be seen as a clear indicator of its radicalization. All radicalized conservative parties have openly pursued rapprochement with the extreme right both inside and outside parliament, and view themselves as its more educated equivalent.
A second factor that will determine the potential scope of the CDU/CSU’s radicalization is its relationship to non-parliamentary right-wing extremism. It is clear that there is no overlap with the street-oriented form of right-wing extremism that is prepared to resort to violence. This clear distinction disappears when it comes to right-wing extremism in the media, however.
Over the past ten years in Germany, a plethora of media outlets dedicated to the culture wars have emerged. Some of these can be traced back to pre-existing extremist milieus, while others are the result of bourgeois media outlets becoming radicalized. Their primary activities are the constant breaking of taboos and the production of provocateurs. Their readers are kept in a permanent state of emergency and outrage. Mobs are incited against individuals who participate in public life. One example in this regard is the hounding of Austrian journalist Alexandra Föderl-Schmidt initiated by right-wing platform Nius.
These media outlets are neither held accountable nor avoided for such actions; instead conservative parties reward them with long form interviews and content. In the process, a sentiment is created amongst the public that also rewards the radicalization of the conservative party. In Germany, the groundwork for this process was laid some time ago.
Solidarity over division
What can be done to counter this domination of party apparatuses and preparatory structures as well a changing media landscape? For starters, it is important not to play along. Outrage (even when justified) only serves to reproduce the extreme right’s desired narratives. A better approach would be to speak a fundamentally different language and to re-draw the lines between “us” and “them”.
In addition, it is crucial to understand that neither radicalized conservatism nor conventional right-wing extremism offer or debate policies, but instead traffic in emotion. Emotions will always win out over rational solutions when it comes to specific societal problems. What this means is that democratic parties must not be too embarrassed to also appeal to them.
This is a balancing act, of course, and cannot be allowed to play out in an overwhelmingly negative way. But it is important that people are able to believe in the possibility of a shared future. This can only develop on the basis of solidarity and community, both of which inspire hope that the future will be better than the present. It is ultimately hope that is the best antidote to hate, fear, and brutalization.
Natascha Strobl is an Austrian political scientist and expert on right-wing extremism and the New Right. This article originally appeared in LuXemburg. Translated by Ryan Eyers and Samuel Langer for Gegensatz Translation Collective.